Lawyer X Royal Commission: Victoria Police accidentally reveals witness identities

RED HOT TIP CONFIRMED

Victoria Police has admitted it accidentally sent out the private email addresses of 159 people involved in the Lawyer X Royal Commission, in a serious privacy breach.

In an email providing an update on the commission, which was sent to 104 serving police and 55 veteran police, the recipient list was mistakenly made visible to all contacts.

Victoria Police has apologised for the “regrettable” mistake.

“When the mistake was identified the email was recalled immediately,” police said in a statement.

“We note that every recipient is a veteran or serving police officer, who is well aware of their obligations to protect the security of information.”

Victoria Police has attempted to contact everyone who was on the contact list to apologise for the mistake, and police processes have been changed to ensure the accident isn’t repeated.

The full police statement:

Victoria Police is providing regular updates to a closed list of 104 serving and 55 veteran police members involved in the current royal commission.

We do this because we are committed to supporting them through this difficult period.

Our standard practice has been to blind copy recipients on these email updates, but regrettably this did not occur on an update sent out earlier this week, and the email addresses were visible to all recipients.

When the mistake was identified the email was recalled immediately.

Victoria Police has called or attempted to call every person on that list to apologise for the error and we have also changed our process to ensure it does not occur again.

Whilst the error is regrettable, and we apologise unreservedly to all affected, we note that every recipient is a veteran or serving police officer, who is well aware of their obligations to protect the security of information.